Bar code scanners are used in a wide variety of applications that rely on bar codes to store information. Industries such as retail, airline, self service, automotive, parcel delivery, pharmaceutical and healthcare use bar codes to provide inventory control, customer identification, item tracking and many others functions. Bar code scanners scan or read a bar code that is typically attached to or printed on an object. A typical bar code is comprised of a number of bars separated by spaces. Information is encoded on a bar code by varying the width of the bars and spaces. When a bar code is placed within the field of view of a scanner, the scanner will read the bars and spaces comprising the bar code and then use this data to decode the information encoded in the bar code. This operation is called reading a bar code. The information encoded on a bar code usually takes the form of an alphanumeric number.
An imaging bar code scanner reads a bar code by capturing a digital image of the bar code and then processing the image to detect and read the bar code. Processing the image to find a bar code is a very computationally intensive process. In high pass-by applications where the bar code is moved past the scanner at high speeds, the bar code being scanned is physically located within the scanner's field of view for a relatively short period of time. During this short time period, multiple images must be captured and processed. This places limits on the time available to process each captured image. In some situations, there is insufficient time to process a captured image before the next image is captured for processing. Increase the processing power of the scanner is one possible solution but this also adds expense to the scanner. Other solutions simply limit the pass-by speed of the bar code thus allowing more time to process the captured image, which reduces the required processing power. Although, what is needed is a way to reduce the computational requirements needed to analyze a captured image so that no increase in scanner processing power is required and there is no reduction in pass-by speed.